Читать книгу The House on the River - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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The purple outline of the big house on Barnes Common was faintly blurred against the velvety umber of the night, like a touch of ragged brushwork on a canvas. It was still comparatively early, barely eleven o'clock, for it was no far cry from the Leinster Rooms to Barnes Common once Quint had left the dinner with a promise to call and see Ralph Enderby at the club shortly after mid-night. If Quint were successful, then he had small intention of troubling Enderby that night or at any time in the future.

At the same time, there was no margin to spare, because, within an hour the moon would be up, and Quint was taking no risks so far as that was concerned. He stood outside the library window presently, under the shadow of the house, with his hands on the clasp. He knew that the application of a stout knife-blade would be quite sufficient for his purpose. A quarter of an hour later, and the thing would be done. He felt in his pocket for the case of tools that he had picked up on his way past the old boat-house, and the touch of the cold steel seemed to give him fresh courage. Not that he needed the stimulant, he told himself half-boastfully, for he was never more cool and collected in his life. Still, he could hear the regular piston beating of his heart, as he worked in the indigo dusk of the night, he could catch the faint warm smell of leather in the library as he pushed back the catch.

Then a point of golden flame stabbed into the darkness of the night, and a tense silence broke into a shatter of sounds with the tramping of feet, and the crackling of parted bushes.

In an instant, Quint realized that he had been betrayed.

He wriggled back like an eel. This was a phase of the game at which he was emphatically at home. Thrusting his bag of tools deeper in his pocket, he headed instinctively for the river.

But he was not clear yet. Two dark figures rushed him from either side, cunningly and warily, like men who know their work. Quick as light, Quint feinted as he darted between them, side stepped in that priceless way of his, and the two minions of the law crashed together with stunning force.

Quint was through now, and grimly set his face towards the goal—the big lodge gates leading to the Windsor Road. He ran on, until his teeth were stripped to the gums, and that great chest of his was calling aloud for a halt. Would he be safe, now, he wondered? But where was he going to find safety? The old boat-house, perhaps, for the next few hours, but after that, what?

His senses were wonderfully alert as he crept into the old boat-house. He seemed to feel more than see that he was not alone. He reached out his arms in a darkness that was pungent with the smell of decaying wood, and grasped something with those wire and whipcord muscles of his.

"Please, please," a pained voice whispered. "Michel, I didn't know you were as strong as all that."

"Ennie!" Quint gasped, with a vibrant note of thankfulness that had almost a touch of tears in it. "My dearest girl, what madness has brought you here?"

"Then you're not glad to see me, Mike?"

"God knows I am," Quint almost sobbed. "But why do you take this risk? What real good can you do? And suppose you had been seen? You're almost as well-known as I am!"

"Not in my present garb," Ennie chuckled. "You can't see, of course, but I'm in my lady-burglar kit. It was quite easy, Mike, I went back to the flat and changed without anybody being a bit the wiser. Then I came down here by train, because I could not wait. I knew you'd come back here to hide the tools. Well, you got the papers, I suppose?"

"Indeed, I haven't," Quint groaned. "I failed, Ennie, failed miserably. I don't know what happened, but the police were there, and if I hadn't been what I am they would have got me to a certainty. It's no use talking about things, little girl, not a bit. I've had a big chance and missed it, and the opportunity is never likely to occur again. I'm done, old girl. The best thing I can do is to follow Somerset's example and give myself up to the authorities."

"Oh, not yet, not yet," Ennie urged. "I think there's just one other way. Suppose you could go into hiding so securely that they couldn't find you? Couldn't you show me a way then in which I could help? Oh, surely there is some way! So long as you have your freedom, everything is not lost."

In the boat-house now, Ennie could just catch sight of Quint's face. It was tense and drawn with the racking emotions of the moment, the palms of his hands were wet, and his brow seemed to be frozen into a frown. Physical courage he had to the full, moral courage he had never lacked, but the spiritual heart in him was slipping away, and he knew it.

"I am afraid it's no use, Ennie," he said. "I have done all I can, and that's all there is to it. I don't think I'm a coward. I have carried through too many a tight fight for people to say that of me, but I am not going to drag you into this dirty business. I don't know how to thank you for what you have done already."

"Then why try?" Ennie asked. "We have always been the best of pals, haven't we Mike?"

"More than that," Quint groaned. "Much more than that, though I never dared to say so, and because why? Because you are the only daughter of a great millionaire, and I an just a rotter of a sportsman without a bob in the world. Now, I think you understand, only I've never dared to say so much before."

He bowed his head in his hands for a moment in an attitude of utter despair. Instinctively Ennie's arm went around his shoulders. At the touch, he sat up again suddenly.

"This won't do, Ennie," he said. "Oh, no. Just think a moment. Perhaps, some day—but there never will be a some day. Nothing can be done now."

"Ah, there you are quite wrong," Ennie said with a queer little catch in her voice. "You have quite forgotten about my eccentric uncle."

"Your uncle," Quint echoed. "Why what's he got to do with it?"

"Everything," Ennie said. "Can't you see that's why I came down here to-night. I came because I thought you might fail, though I little expected it. Now, listen, Mike. Everard Geere is absolutely alone in the world. No one ever enters his house, and he never speaks to a soul. He hardly ever goes out, except occasionally, in a bath chair, and only then when he's going to the bank, and don't forget he's lived here for nearly forty years. He is absolutely beyond suspicion."

"Go on," Quint said. "Go on, Ennie."

"Well, can't you see what I mean? Why shouldn't you stay here and become part of the household? I think if I tell my uncle the truth, that he is just the sort of man to help us. And even if he won't, there's no harm done. Suppose I persuade him that he wants assistance—a man to help him in the house and drag his bath chair when he goes out? You could stay here for a day or two while I got you an efficient disguise, and the thing is done. In my position, I can get as many disguises as I like without incurring any suspicion. Oh, don't say no, Mike—give it a chance, at any rate, and then I can come down here and see you, and we can make all sorts of plans for confounding those scoundrels. And don't forget that I see Ralph Enderby nearly every day. I hate to say it, but he admires me. It was only because he hoped I would stay and have supper with him the other night that he asked me down here to get that burglar scene filmed. I think you might trust a woman's wit——"

"No, no," Quint protested. "I hate the idea. The thought of that scoundrel being in your company maddens me."

"But think of the opportunities," Ennie urged. "Think what might happen if only you——"

But Quint was not listening. His quick ear caught the snap of a breaking twig, and the next minute he was on his feet.

"They are here," he whispered. "I might have guessed it. Quick, hand me that punt-pole. I am going to snap that stay post and float that big balk of timber down the stream. Don't you see what I mean, Ennie? I can lie full length along it as it drifts down the tide. Then, when I do that, you slip away whilst I draw them off the scent, then you hang about in front of the house, say in one of the opposite gardens till I get back again."

"But suppose you don't come back?" Ennie asked.

"Oh, I shall come back again," Quint said, with all his splendid confidence alive within him. "I shall give those chaps the slip as I did before. This is the sort of game I can play at. We'll baffle them."

With that Quint reached out and snapped the stay-post with a steady pressure of the punt-pole, and, throwing himself forward lay at full length upon the beam of timber that drifted along under the shadow of the bank just out of the moonlight. Ennie crept back from the boat-house and, treading as lightly as a cat, reached the road, then hiding herself behind a group of shrubs in a garden on the other side of the thoroughfare, waited with a beating heart for the next development of the drama.